SMBs are very much familiar with modern credit card processors such as PayPal, Stripe, Helcim, FattMerchant, and Square.
However, despite their popularity, they are not the largest credit card processors on the market today. If we’re talking about the volume of transactions processed daily, these processors are still miles away from beating decades-old banking institutions.
Some of the largest credit card processors today include FIS Global, Chase Bank, First Data, Bank of America, Global Payments, Wells Fargo, Elavon, PNC Bank, Priority Payment Systems, and Paysafe. Note that most of these are well-established commercial finance institutions who have been around for decades now. They offer a wide range of banking products as well.
Let’s map out the top five credit card processing companies that processed the most transactions in the past year:
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Processed Transactions: 26.6 billion
FIS Payments One Credit is known for their amazing loyal client rewards programs and streamline payment collection process.
Processed Transactions: 24.8 billion
Chase Bank provides various payment processing solutions depending on their client’s needs. They cater to both physical retail and eCommerce store owners.
Processed Transactions: 24 billion
First Data focuses on simplicity. They want to make credit card payments processing as easy and convenient as possible for merchants.
Processed Transactions: 18.2 billion
The Bank of America provides an excellent variety of POS hardware and software systems for merchants to choose from.
Processed Transactions: 9.9 billion
Merchants who use Global Payments get to enjoy their multi-feature system that offers different tools to make daily operations easier.
Note: This list is based off of the total Visa and Mastercard transactions each institution processed. The aforementioned data does not include less popular payment networks such as Diners Club, American Express, and Discover.
Note that getting approved for an account with these commercial credit card processors is quite difficult. You’ll have to meet various requirements.
In most cases, commercial institutions choose to work with reputable merchants who operate in low-risk industries, have excellent credit scores, have been in business for multiple years now, process a specific amount of transactions daily, and do not receive chargebacks too often.
If this isn’t something you can qualify for, don’t worry. There are many modern credit card processors that are willing to work with clients who operate in high-risk industries, have bad credit, or process low-volume transactions daily. You just have to assess what your business needs.
Florence Carpenter is passionate about ensuring that the process of opening merchant accounts is as straightforward as possible. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing.
